At what point is it no longer d20?

[Xeriar]

It's bordering on not being d20 anymore. Switch to 2d10 and you will have something like the 2d10 system I'm making (which, oddly, I'm designing to allow the swappage of attributes, the modern version will roll strength and constitution into the same stat, because they both lose importance with uberdeadly weapons.)

 

[Bagpuss]

Hrm, Valar ADDED a stat, appearance, it was a d20 licensed product that was fully complient till the recent changes. So adding a stat is ok, but removing or otherwise changing them is not?

From the D20 Guide.rtf at Wizards site

"No Covered Product may change or extend the definition of any Defined Game Term as enumerated in this Guide."

Strength, Dexterity, etc. are Defined Game Terms in the guide, as a things like entangled, helpless, paralyzed, etc. which refer to Dexterity and Strength in their discriptions.

Therefore you can't remove or change them and remain a D20 game.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Ok, But adding more stats IS ok.
Intresting.

Theoretically, adding apperaance changes the function of charisma, even though it is mostly force of personality.

 

[diaglo]

Mechanically, it's not D&D anymore, but it's still d20.

i would say it is not D&D anymore nor d20.

it wasn't D&D to start with....he said d20 Modern

 

[Jeph]

It wouldln't be d20, because you'd need character creation rules for the whole point-based gig. It would be OGL.

EDIT: A thought--if you can't legally change the definition of Constitution, why don't you just drop both Str and Con and create a new stat name? Body, Brawn, Bulk, Size, Mass, Stamina, and more are all possibilities if you take this route.

 

[DMScott]

At what point does it cease to be d20 and start to be something else?

It's no longer d20 when you couldn't release it under the d20 STL. The term is pure branding, it has very little to do with the extent of the changes. Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed is pretty darn close to D&D, but is not d20 because of the inclusion of character creation and advancement information necessary for a "Variant Players Handbook". So the distinction is only important if you plan to publish your work.

If you do plan to publish, you should sit down and go through all of WOTC's license documents, preferably with a lawyer if you're going to try and make a profit. Using the d20 brand usually means more people will use your work.

 

[Belen]

Ugh...too complicated and I see no way to balance a skill-point based character creation system. It is too easy to lay down the uber-cheese when no structure exists.

 

[Henry]

If you want to be picky, mechanically, it's still d20. I use Mutants and Masterminds as a guide, which is almost as close as you can get to modifying the system and it's still d20.

Legally, as others have said, it's not d20.

Personally, it's a new d20 game system - and a pretty interesting one!

I'm going to slide this over into the d20 System Forum, because this thread conceptually feels like it belongs there.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Start with d20 Modern
- Add WP/VP system to replace hit points
- After hearing myself rant on and on about how Strength really means coordination, get tired of being told that there's no book evidence for it. Take out Strength, separate Dexterity into Precision and Agility (a common-enough RPG differentiation point), with Agility modifying melee attacks, defense, initiative, and fast full-body skills like Tumble, and Precision modifying ranged attacks, slow full-body skills like Hide and Move Silently, and Fine-tuning skills like Disable Device. Use Constitution to determine bonuses to melee damage, since most folks have issue with the idea of a weak person who isn't frail, or a tough person who isn't strong.
- Change Armor to DR rather than Defense boosting

Curiously this bit is *exactly* what I'm doing with an OGL version of my "Starguild RPG" (except that I used "SIZe" as the combined str damage, fort bonus and HD bonus attribute).

I'm really wrestling because there are things that I think my game system does better than d20 ( ) and in my re-working to make it d20-ish I keep on finding that extreme changes are creeping back in.

I'm certainly considering axing BAB and moving to weapon skills, for instance; after a while you start asking yourself what the point of levels is (as you seem to be!).

One of the ideas I was kicking around but didn't actually get to grips with, was to use levels as descriptive rather than prescriptive. e.g. "You are a 2nd level strong hero when you have got the following skills: flog 4+, hike 4+, bash 4+...etc"

Another idea was to allow xps to be spent to "purchase" skills (within boundaries) and allow a "level" of a class to be a package of skills which are purchased at a discount for being a package.

Just rambling now, so I'll shut up

 

[Tonguez]

The % based skill system I was working on before D20 DnD came out used a D20 to determine the following Stats

Power (combined Str and Con = basis of Stamina)
Agility (Movement based Dex (Dex +Str) = Tumble, Climb, Run and Reflex)
Coordination (Manual Dexterity = Combat, Juggling, Pick locks etc)
Perception (Awareness aspects of Wis = Spot, Listen)
IQ (Intelligence)
Intuition (Will, 'psychic affinity' and Sanity)
Presence (Charisma)

Stamina, Reflex and Sanity were used for saves including Damage Saves in combat

Anyway it was leveless and instead used a feat type system (called Talents) - when a PC got 2000 xp they gained a new Talent which could be used to get +1d6 skill points (Training Talent), increase Stamina or gain a new Class Skill/Feat (called a Knack eg Rage would be a Knack)

anyway I abandoned it for D20 but the point of sharing is I too combined Str and Con as you did, seperated Dex into Agility and Manual Dexterity and did a few other tweaks

Also to gain more skillpoints in a levelless system just award feats for Y-number of XP (eg 2000xp) and make +1d6 Skill points (or something) a stackable 'training' feat